Day 5 - Hands on Projects

When ever I consider hands on projects these days I always seem to think twice as it feels like so much work to do for one child.  I find it a challenge homeschooling an only as it was never really an issue when homeschooling my first two. One of the biggest influences in this area is my own personal learning style. I am a textbook read it kind of person.  I don't need to do in order to learn I get just as much satisfaction watching someone else do a science experiment than doing it myself. Sir N on the other hand loves to do. Monday's topic of Delight Directed education has inspired me to look at doing more Hands-on learning with Sir N in our homeschooling.

Things to consider

• The activity needs to be appealing to your student
• Engage the mind
• Consider your students learning style.
• Base the activity on an idea that will encourage the student to ask questions and grow from the experience.
• Needs to enlarge the students understanding

Chinese Proverb

Benefits of hands on learning

• The student is able to be an active participant in their learning.
• Hands-on learning does not look like or feel like school so it encourages reluctant learners to participate in learning.
• Encourages creativity
• Produces a sense of accomplishment in your student.
• Helps to reinforce a concept.

Ideas for Hands-on Learning

• Explore Pinterest
• Participate in field trips. Amy has some great ideas over at Bow of Bronze about this.
• Use Lapbooking & Notebooking 
• Play games, create games, puzzles
• YouTube
• Incorporate your kitchen in learning
• Craft activity
• Mapping activity
• Re-enact (Dress Ups), Puppet shows, make a YouTube clip
• Language Arts - Poetry, essay,
• Explore the local Museums, Science Museums, Public Library, Farms etc

Source:

On the www

• Pinterest is an unending font of ideas. A word of caution here: Don't become paralyzed with so much choice you don't do anything.
• How Pinterest can Ruin your Homeschool over at Jimmie's Collage.
• Hands-on Shakespeare by Jimmie on Squidoo
• Top 6 Reasons to Use Hands-on Projects  by Jimmie on Squidoo
• Hands-on Projects A-Z over at Heart of the Matter
• Websites with Hands on Lessons & Games by Teddi14 on Squidoo
• Fun, FREE Hands-on Unit Studies by iijuan12 on Squidoo
• Hands-on Learning eBook over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
• Am I a Bad Homeschool Mom if I don't use Hands-on Projects ?by Jimmie over at Jimmie's Collage
• Hands-on Learning for Homeschoolers by Julie Knapp over at Homeschool Dinner 

Some of our Hands on Learning projects

• Paper Snowflakes  
• Snow Globes  
• Peg frogs & Finger Firefighters 
• Field Trips - {38}
• Geography Unit Studies

What are your favourite hands on learning projects ?

Blessings
Chareen

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Day 5

1. Delight Directed Instruction
2. Schooling in the Kitchen
3. Toy's, Games & Puzzles
4. Homeschooling in a Crisis
5. Hands on Projects

Don't forget to enter the Teaching Creatively Giveaway.  Pop on over to Ben and Me to enter in order to win one of three prize packs. (1st prize $525 value, 2nd prize $225 value and 3rd prize $190 value)

Hands on Learning graphic courtesy of David Castilo Dominici

To read about more ideas on Hands on Projects have a look at what these ladies are saying.

Day 4 - Homeschooling in a Crisis

A crisis can take on many forms. The hardest part is knowing what to do when you are confronted with an unexpected turn of events. The biggest question home schooler's face is whether or not to continue on their home educating journey in the midst of a crisis.

Types of Crisis

• Depression
• Financial 
• Death of a loved one
• Terminal illness
• Major injury
• Physical disability
• Long term health challenges
• Natural Disasters (floods, earth quakes, fires)
• Terrorist attacks
• Divorce
• Moving
• Immigration
• Chronic pain
• Premature birth of your newest baby

Our Journey
Homeschooling in a crisis for us meant that school was one less thing to worry about. I did not need to fit in taking children to school or fetching them, preparing school lunches, talk to teachers about what was happening or do homework at the end of our day.

Our family has been through several crisis situations in the last 15 years (two immigrations and two spinal surgeries). The first major crisis was when my husband fell on our roof and ruptured a disk in his lower back.  Unfortunately the extent of his injury remained unknown or correctly treated for over a month during which time we were in survival mode at home.

Homeschooling was a saving grace during this crisis as we were able to be home and help him.  It allowed our two children at the time to work through the process of Daddy is not well and walk along with us in his journey to being well again.
It allowed us the flexibility we needed once he was admitted to hospital and on an emergency surgery list and this in turn allowed us to drop what we were doing at a moments notice to go and be with him.

Once he had surgery being home with us helped us all realize he is on the road to recovery and the major benefit to him being on bed rest meant that Daddy did all the read alouds for six months.  It was the highlight of our day! Actually it was three or four hours a day that Daddy read to the family.  We built family bonds we would not have had otherwise.

This experience helped us cope when my eldest son had an accident at work and needed the same surgery that Paul had had five years before and it was not as scary a thing as it could have been had he not walked this journey with us before.

I do confess I had a major panic about two months into our situation when I realized we had done no formal schooling.  At this point Paul still was not well enough for us to do full days of school so upon evaluation we settled on the three R's as a daily minimum.

A month later Paul was on the road to recovery and took over reading out loud to the children so that I could catch up on life at home. Washing, ironing, groceries etc.

A few weeks later I took up the books and we slowly built up to full school days and I was surprised to see that the children had not fallen behind. It was easy picking up our full routine at this point because it's how we had always done things so they new what to do.

Advantages

• Take time off official school to cope with / work through worry, fear and anxiety
• Flexibility with time. I was able to go to the hospital as often or when ever we needed.
• Character growth. Our children learned many character things over this period such as putting the needs of Dad ahead of their own.
• Walking through the crisis together can strengthen family bonds.
• When moving you don't need to look for a new school. 

Supporting a family in crisis

• Pray for the family who are in crisis mode
• If it's within your power to do good,do it!
• Offer to be available to baby sit at a moments notice.
• Buy milk and bread and some fruit and take it over.
• Take over some baking and have a cup of tea
• Drop them an sms to let the family know they are in your thoughts.
• Take over a ready cooked meal
• Offer to do a couple of errands.
• Do NOT suggest putting the children into school . . .

On the web

• Homeschooling During a Family Health Crisis over at LDS Homeschooling in California and everywhere!
• Homeschooling During a Crisis ? over at About.com
• 31 Days of Homeschooling Through a Crisis over at Reality Homeschooling
• Homeschooling through challenging times over at Family Education
• Homeschooling During a Crisis Audio Session over at Raising Arrows
• Homeschooling through crisis . . . over at Looking at life Creativlei
• Family Crisis. What is a home school parent to do ? over at The HomeScholar.
• Homeschooling in Times of Crisis over at Sierra Highlands

The thing that I have come to realize retrospectively is that I should have claimed some short periods of time in my day during the crisis to look after me. That would have helped me stay energised and would have prevented the crash and burn that happened after wards.

As a home school mom if you are walking through a crisis right now give yourself permission to take some time off school, work through the crisis then come back to school and move forward.  During your crisis claim 15 min of time twice a day to have some time out and recharge especially if the crisis will not be a short term thing.

If you have home educated through a crisis I would love to read more about what you did.

Blessings
Chareen

This post is part of a week of blog hopping hosted by The Schoolhouse Review Crew: 5 Days of Teaching Creatively Day Four

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Day 4

1. Delight Directed Instruction
2. Schooling in the Kitchen
3. Toy's, Games & Puzzles
4. Homeschooling in a Crisis
5. Hands on Projects

Don't forget to enter the Teaching Creatively Giveaway.  Pop on over to Ben and Me to enter in order to win one of three prize packs. (1st prize $525 value, 2nd prize $225 value and 3rd prize $190 value)


Crisis image courtesy of Free Digital Photo's -  Stuart Miles

Day 3 - Toys, Games, and Puzzles

Puzzles, toys and games are a multimillion dollar industry and it's growing by the day and with it often grows our confusion about what to buy and use in our home schools. Are their benefits to using / playing board games with our children ?

Some benefits of board games

• Increases critical thinking skills
• Grouping skills
• Counting skills
• Logic and reasoning skills
• Visual perception
• Fine motor skills
• 3 D thinking
• Quality Family Time
• Relieves Stress and Mental Fatigue
• Life Skills - negotiating, accepting defeat and trying again, being happy for another who is winning, etc
• Pattern recognition
• Plan ahead and reason cause and effect
• Learn from mistakes
• Improves general IQ

Elsewhere on the Web

• The Best Homeschool Games: Disguise Learning As Fun
• The Benefits of Board Games over at Scholastic
• The Amazing Health Benefits of Board Games over at Six Wise
• Collect life lessons as you pass go over at BBC News
• Board Games for Kids: Do they make kids smarter ? over at Parenting Science

My Favourites
Today I would like to share my favorite games for preparing your students for the high school years and formal logic study.

Lonpos

Contains one travel pack with 12 coloured game pieces and booklet containing challenges (One dimensional and three dimensional). Each challenge builds upon the skill of the last.

Blockus

Blokus consists of one board, four different colour tetras shaped pieces {red, yellow, blue and green),  This game can be played with 1-4 players. The game works on strategy and critical thinking skills.

Rush Hour

This game consists of a storage bag, one traffic grid board with storage board, 40 graded challenge cards (4 levels), 15 blocking cars and trucks, 1 red escape car. This game works on logic and critical thinking skills.

Block by Block

This game consists of seven block pieces, 60 challenge cards {each card has a three dimensional picture that needs to be constructed using the block pieces, the rear of the card contains the solution), and a storage bag. The game strengthens problem solving skills and 3 dimensional thinking.

The Challenge
My biggest challenge is remembering to actually take all these wonderful games out of the cupboard and using them.  It seems we are always running out of time!

What are some of your favourite board games ?

Blessings
Chareen

Puzzle image courtesy Free Digital Photo's - Salvatore Vuono 

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Day 3

1. Delight Directed Instruction
2. Schooling in the Kitchen
3. Toy's, Games & Puzzles
4. Homeschooling in a Crisis
5. Hands on Projects

Don't forget to enter the Teaching Creatively Giveaway.  Pop on over to Ben and Me to enter in order to win one of three prize packs. (1st prize $525 value, 2nd prize $225 value and 3rd prize $190 value)

Here are some more posts by home school moms with ideas about Toys, Games and Puzzles in your Homeschooling

Day 2 - Schooling in the Kitchen

The culinary arts are generally an over looked valuable resource in home educating. We are often focused on the academic achievements of our students, in order that they are able to access tertiary education, that we forget to arm them for real life. The future generations are losing the ability to cook wholesome food and our daughters don't know how to prepare healthy home cooked meals or stock a pantry.

Last year Sir N and I delighted in watching Junior MasterChef. The thing that struck me time and time again was the young ages of the contestants.  The 12 who made the final selection in Season One ranged in age from 9 - 12 years old.  These young people had definitely not learned to cook in the month before starting on the show.  I was impacted by their passion and the knowledge of their skill shone through.  How did these children get here ?

It starts here

Real life kitchen learning starts in the preschool years when we buy all those cute play sets and allow them to play in the sand pit and bath. Repetitive play at this stage reinforces and refines the fine motor skills needed to work safely in a kitchen.

 Once they have attained a certain level of prowess progress to the kitchen with child safe instruments and allow them to cut soft foods (banana, avocado, bread, etc) and help make lunch. Most importantly get them helping you to clean up the kitchen after they have finished.

As they grow taller and depending on the height of your benches expand your children's repertoire in the kitchen to helping cook dinner.  Remember to take them from being spectators to participators and onto creators in your kitchen. 

Life Lessons in your Kitchen
Sarah over at My Joy Filled Life gives a comprehensive breakdown of subjects your children can learn in your kitchen.  The ideas are endless and only limited to your imagination. The most important thing to remember is to keep it fun and enjoy the process.

• Reading - Recipe's, Ingredient lists on products,
• Language Arts - Learn about the abbreviations used in cooking and science
• Math skills - Budgeting, Measuring, Multiplying,
• Science - Chemical Reactions, Density, 
• Home Economics - Meal planning, Storage, Cleaning, Storing food appropriately
• Biology - Parts of an animal in cutting meat, 
• Safety - Using equipment Safely, 
• Geography - Find recipes of traditional foods of the country you are studying
• History - Find out how food was prepared and what was eaten in the era you are studying and try it out.
• Gardening - Grow your own herbs on the windowsill.
• Art - decorate biscuits, make a ginger bread house, etc
• Gift Giving - cooking a meal for a friend in need, baking biscuits for the elderly, etc

On the www

• Science in the Kitchen on Pinterest
• Cooking with Kids on Pinterest
• Make a Gingerbread House for the holidays. {Part 1, Part 2, Part 3}
• 7 tips for cooking with kids over at Crayon Freckles
• 16 Kitchen Safety Tips for Children over at Just Mommies
• Kitchen Science Experiments over at About.com
• Kitchen Science over at The Naked Scientists
• Home Science Tools The Gateway to Discovery 
• Teaching Kids Science in the Kitchen: Tips to get talking about Science

Since it's close to Easter we decided to bake an Easter Egg Rainbow Sponge Cake.  Sir N loved seeing what would happen with the colours and all the taste testing. . .

Tutorial

"Children love learning until we kill that love by insisting on teaching when they are already busy learning. Be mindful of what our children are learning when we get that urge to teach - let's learn how they learn optimally and tune into that and help them learn what we want them to learn as well as what they naturally go about learning themselves" - Beverley Paine


How do you apply Delight Directed learning in your Kitchen ?

Blessings
Chareen

This post is part of a week of blog hopping hosted by The Schoolhouse Review Crew: 5 Days of Teaching Creatively Day TWO

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Day 2

1. Delight Directed Instruction
2. Schooling in the Kitchen
3. Toy's, Games & Puzzles
4. Homeschooling in a Crisis
5. Hands on Projects

Don't forget to enter the Teaching Creatively Giveaway.  Pop on over to Ben and Me to enter in order to win one of three prize packs. (1st prize $525 value, 2nd prize $225 value and 3rd prize $190 value)



**Images from Free Digital Photo's: Child playing with Kitchen Utensil - Stuart Miles, Senior Chef Teaches Young Chef To Cut - Marin


Here are some more posts by homeschool moms with ideas about Schooling in the kitchen

Day 1 - Delight Directed Instruction

I have spent a delightful few weeks exploring the wide scope and vision of delight directed education.  I do confess that in times past I have shied away from the idea as I had connected delight directed learning with doing absolutely nothing and allowing the child to explore and teach themselves.  I have since come to realize that this is a far cry from the reality of allowing your student to explore the world around them with you facilitating and enriching the experience.

I have been homeschooling for over 15 years and to be honest I have been experiencing a deep dissatisfaction with our journey over the last few months which in turn has found me in an almost paralyzed state as a home school mom wondering what on earth to do.  I have come to realize that I have fallen prey to  the slavery of checking every box on my home school instructors guide in order to have a tangible indication that Sir N has learned something.   Even Sir N has been bitterly complaining that he hates school.  Each time I say it's time to do school he pitches a tantrum. . . Enough! It's time for change and I think that we will be incorporating more Delight Directed studying around here.

What is it ?

• Delight - a high degree of gratification, joy, extreme satisfaction, something that gives pleasure. Delight is a more permanent pleasure than joy, and not dependent on sudden excitement.
• Directed - means Aimed; pointed; guided; regulated; governed; ordered; instructed
• Education - Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations 

Delight Directed teaching / study is not about a home school method or formula it's about feeding the heart and mind of your student. It's about lighting a spark and flaming it in the mind and heart of your student towards what ever it is that you are learning about together.

I am inspired by what Greg Harris has written on delight directed education:  "A delight-directed study is like a wonderful fire in the mind of a student. It starts small, but as it grows, it begins to consume vast amounts of information until it bursts into a roaring blaze of insight, understanding and creativity. It takes on a life of its own." - Greg Harris

We need to remember that as parents we are the ones with life experience and still need to direct (point/guide) our students learning and this in turn means opening up new avenues for students to explore and enjoy.

How does this work ?
I have learned that it's about listening to your child's heart, it's all about connecting and expanding upon the platform that you are currently laying in what ever field you are exploring.  It's about answering the burning question upon your child's heart.

 "Delight-directed study is child-responsive, but still parent-supervised. Delight-directed study strategies are more responsive to the interest of the student, without being indulgent. Rather than allow the student to study whatever he sees fit, however he sees fit, delight-directed study urges parents to guide their child’s studies and establish clear accountability for his work." Greg Harris

For me it's about finding a balance between needing to have some structure but also feeding his current interest. It means taking the time to answer his questions and following the rabbit trail and learning via the scenic route. At the same time it's about not getting so far off the beaten track that we can never return. It's about making use of our environment and creating the science of relations that help my student to connect the dots and see that the whole world moves in concert and that there is not a single thing that happens in isolation.

At times we are able to go straight away and answer the question at hand due to it's relevance at time of asking and at other times we might need to write it down in order to explore the topic at a more relevant time. For this we have created a book to jot down questions and have found that this relieves Sir N's pressing need to know now before we forget. If we do not have the book my smart phone serves as a note keeper.

Delight Directed learning. . .

• Means structuring learning around your child's interest and delight.
• Flourishes in a flexible routine and is happy to take the scenic route in learning.
• Means getting to know your child and what makes them come alive.
• Starts with knowing what your child's particular learning style is and using this to encourage learning.
• Starts with and fosters delight.
• Is parent supervised and supported
• Using a web approach to cover subjects rather than seeing individual subjects its taking one topic and covering a multiple of disciplines
• Takes into account the interests and curiosities your child holds.
• Is compatible with all home school methods and approaches.
• Means using all your senses when learning. It entails cooking new foods, reading living books, exploring the library looking for books to find out more, building something, writing / sharing about your discovery.
• Uses the environment (library, zoo, museum, field trips) to enhance and encourage learning via building relationships with the subject matter at hand.
• Is not tied to an instructor guide to the exclusion of all other learning.

Elsewhere on the web
There are many who have shared their wisdom on the www here are a few articles to enrich your understanding of Delight Directed Learning.

• On Pinterest
• Delight-Directed Study by Gregg Harris
• D is for Delight Directed over at Ben and Me.
• Working With Delight-Directed Passions in Your Home schooled Student by Armond K Joseph
• How to Find Home school Resources for Your Child {Learning by doing}
• Putting Delight Directed Learning on Your Child's Home school Transcript  
• How to Nurture and Educate Your Child So They Want to Learn  
• Delight Directed Learning over at So You call Yourself a Homeschooler
• 5 Reasons You Should {& Should Not} Choose Delight-Directed Learning over at So You call Yourself a Homeschooler
• Would you like to listen to a workshop on Delight Directed Learning ? The Noble Institute has a 9 hour Homeschooling Workshop by Greg Harris for you to purchase.
• Delight Directed Learning over at Walking by the Way.
• Outgrowing the Greenhouse {A conversation with Gregg Harris} over at HSLDA
• What is a Delight Directed Home school ? over at Raising Arrows.
• Basic intro to Delight Directed Learning by Barb Shelton over at Home school Oasis
• Delight Directed Homeschooling by Jimmie over at Squidoo
• Camp Creek Blog has a wealth of knowledge on Delight Directed learning.

I have learned that as a home school mom I need to take note that "We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How do you apply Delight Directed learning in your home school ?

Blessings
Chareen

This post is part of a week of blog hopping hosted by The Schoolhouse Review Crew: 5 Days of Teaching Creatively Day One

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Day 2

1. Delight Directed Instruction
2. Schooling in the Kitchen
3. Toy's, Games & Puzzles
4. Homeschooling in a Crisis
5. Hands on Projects

Don't forget to enter the Teaching Creatively Giveaway.  Pop on over to Ben and Me to enter in order to win one of three prize packs. (1st prize $525 value, 2nd prize $225 value and 3rd prize $190 value)


**Images from Free Digital Photo's:Magnifying glass Image  Courtesy of Stuart Miles Black Board Image courtesy of Nuttakit


Here are some more posts by home school moms with ideas about Delight Directed Teaching